Down To Earth

Editorial. Sunita Narain.
XVI.VI.XV

Delhi’s Clean Air
Challenge

By Sunita
Narain

It is good that deadly
air pollution in Delhi has become national
headline. But it is bad that we are failing to
deal with it and find answers that are
commensurate with the scale of the problem. It is
time to understand what we have done and the
actions we need to take urgently and decisively.
Otherwise, next winter—barely five months
away—will be even more severe and hazardous.
While foreigners can choose not to live in
polluted Delhi, most of us do not have that
option. Let’s also be clear that home air
purifiers and filters are not the solution even if
the rich in the city believe that they can shut
their houses and clean their own private
air.

Some 16 years ago, the
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) issued an
advertisement: “Roll down the window of your
bullet-proof car, Mr Prime Minister. The security
threat is not the gun, it is the air of
Delhi.” This was the time when the air of
Delhi was full of black smoke, fuel and emission
standards were virtually non-existent and
motorisation was just beginning to take off. The
agenda for action—also listed by CSE in the
public notice—was to advance the roadmap for
fuel-emission standards; restrict diesel vehicles
and make the transition to a much cleaner fuel,
compressed natural gas (CNG).

Not anymore. Since 2007
pollution has risen to dangerously toxic levels.
This winter, the level of PM 2.5—tiny
particles emitted from vehicles that can go deep
into the lungs and enter the blood
stream—remained three-four times higher than
the safety standard. In fact, in November,
December and January, air was classified as
“severely polluted” for over 65 per
cent of the days. According to the
government’s own air quality index, this
meant pollution was so bad that it could cause
“respiratory effects even on healthy
people”. It is unsafe to breathe. This is
what we must realise.

So, what has happened to
make Delhi residents, once again, wheeze, choke
and die because of dirty air? In the past decade,
since the introduction of CNG, some things have
changed. First, there has been an explosion of
personal vehicles—near 100 per cent increase
in registration in Delhi alone. So, even as each
car has become cleaner because of tighter emission
standards and better quality of fuel, the number
has increased exponentially. The net result on
pollution is the same.

Second, while in 2000
diesel cars were only 4 per cent of the total
sales, this increased to 50 per cent by mid-2000.
Each diesel car is legally allowed to emit four to
seven times more than the petrol variant.
Pollution is inevitable. Third, the bypass road,
ordered by the Supreme Court in 2004, was not
built. So, some 50,000 trucks using dirty fuel and
even dirtier technology transit the
city.

One new source of
pollution has made an entry. Post mid-2000, Punjab
and Haryana directed farmers to delay paddy
transplantation to reduce groundwater usage in
peak summer. Now farmers have no time to prepare
the field between harvesting paddy and growing
wheat, so they burn the straw. In October and
November, just as winter inversion is settling in,
smoke from this fire makes its way to the already
polluted airshed of Delhi.

The country immediately
needs an aggressive roadmap for clean fuel and
vehicle technology. This is not acceptable to
powerful vehicle manufacturers. Even as oil
companies have started the supply of cleaner fuel
across north India since April 1, 2015, car
companies have succeeded in getting an extension
for supply of clean vehicles from the surface
transport ministry. Now, the same car companies
are busy arguing that they should continue to have
the licence to pollute. They want 8-10 years to
move to the cleaner vehicle technology Europe uses
today. These companies need to understand that we
have all run out of time and air to
breathe.

The other steps are
equally urgent, from monitoring air quality to
smog alerts, so that we know when it is advisable
to take precautions because of bad air. But most
critical is the need to massively augment our
public transportation systems, from bus and metro
to footpaths and cycle tracks, so that we can take
a bus and then cross the road or just walk. We
also need car restraints. Parking rates and fines
for illegal parking need to be increased and then
enforced. Today we have a handful of cranes and a
sprinkling of traffic police to stop illegal
parking. This cannot go on.

In mid-1990s, we
published a report on air pollution and called it
Slow Murder. That’s what it
is—deliberate and deadly. Nothing
less.